Anne Zelenka's book Connect!: A Guide to a New Way of Working from GigaOM's Web Worker Daily is a roadmap to a way of working life that makes so much sense it is scary. I had only read a few pages when I posted about Career Empowerment on Sunday, but already, I could feel I was channeling the book. For those who work in the online, web, startup-oriented world, this will be kind of book you want your managers to read if you feel the don't "get" you. It is a good companion to Rebecca Ryan's Live First, Work Second which takes a more generational perspective on life/work balance and the changing priorities of the workforce.

The new way of working illustrates how a "bursty" workstyle has emerged to fit the needs of the unpredictable, rapidly changing business dynamics of technology and media companies. The "old" workstyle was "busy" and was focused on internalized, command and control discipline for "knowledge workers" to deliver knowledge material. The new style is more about bursts of creativity and innovation, of putting together the pieces, not creating everything from scratch. That challenge requires a different approach.

This book is full of great comparison tables and illustrations of the old and new styles, but also makes the point that this is not an all or nothing change. There are still times when the old approach--of sitting down and plugging through difficult, frustrating, precision tasks--is necessary to be effective. The book is not a license for workers to become scatterbrained dilettantes. But it does effectively illustrate how we all need to re-examine our assumptions and evaluate whether the "work values" we have based on a prior business model serve us anymore. I found that realism refreshing and helpful--this is a book loaded with resources and suggestions to help workers adapt their working style and identify ways to become much more effective.

My only criticism is that the book attempts to provide almost a cookbook to help workers navigate into this style of work and spends too much time talking about how to set up your remote web office. I think it's quite a leap to 1) recognize the trend and 2) make the leap. Most of use will have to engage in intraprenurial battles against recalcitrant corporate culture--of managers who demand face time (e.g. have limited or discouraged remote work policies), won't approve anything without exhaustive planning and data, and who blanch outright at concepts like "Try agile experimentation and fast failure." Those who, fed up with that challenge, decide to make the leap to start their own business will quickly discover that while the employee world has changed radically, there are still many, many "busyness" principles that are required to make a company work. You can't do payroll and benefits in bursts of creativity and inspiration.

But this is a great reference book that is extremely timely, haven been written and published in the past few months. It inspires me to try out more tools, more social networking sites, and to keep an open mind to what is possible. Six months ago, twitter was another weird site for web bums and teenagers with nothing better to do than update their friends about their daily boring activities. Today, it is being overrun with marketing and technology people who are finding business uses for it. The most fundamental principle this book drives home is the idea that because we really cannot anticipate the future we need to try many things and not be afraid of choice. You never know where something will lead...so act now and adapt as necessary.